Religion Journal; Colleges Share Space and Interfaith Vision

By KATIE ZEZIMA

Published: February 18, 2006

It all started eight years ago as a sketch on a napkin.

David Gordis, president of Hebrew College, a center for transdenominational Jewish education then located in Brookline, was having lunch with Rodney Peterson, president of the Boston Theological Institute, a consortium of local Christian schools, and casually mentioned that the college was outgrowing its space.

Dr. Peterson said the Andover Newton Theological Seminary, which houses the theological institute here, was looking to sell surplus land on its hilltop campus. He scribbled a picture on a napkin of what the two schools would look like as neighbors. The following day, the deal was on its way to being done, and Hebrew College opened here in 2001.

That vision, one of intense collaboration and interfaith exploration, faltered at first. The institutions opened an interreligious center, but the partnership was weak.

That changed in 2004, when Nick Carter became the president of Andover Newton, a nondenominational Christian college of 400 students. Mr. Carter, after speaking with Dr. Gordis, realized they were focused on creating a generation of spiritual leaders for whom crossing religious borders would be essential. Now the colleges share courses, Seders, Sunday church services and lectures, as well as location.

Students created a group, Journeys on the Hill, which sets up a year's worth of programs and lectures based on the Mishnah, six books that codify Jewish law found in the Torah. Hebrew College's rabbinical school focuses its teachings on a different Mishnah each year. Students at both colleges are encouraged to attend each others' services and take one of several classes that are team-taught by a professor from each institution.

''This conveys the sense that reaching out to the other is not responding to a threat or a problem, but that interrelation with others is a source of enrichment that expands us rather than threatens,'' Dr. Gordis said.

Curtis Freeman, a professor of religion at the Duke Divinity School, said he did not know of other institutions that had such a close proximity and collaboration. He said the idea of a partnership would probably not have been broached if one of the colleges were evangelical or Orthodox.

''I think there's much more of an interfaith inclination among mainline Protestants than evangelical Protestants,'' Professor Freeman said. ''But the fact of the matter is it's a wonderful thing for Jews and Christians to be in a conversation together.''

Students and faculty members said they had not only learned about another religion, but had also forged a deeper connection with their own faith by re-examining basic religious tenets.

For Chaim Koritzinsky, that meant reflecting on the meaning of Passover, which he spoke about with Andover Newton students during a communal Seder.

Exploring Christianity through conversations has enabled him to hear personal, not theologized, accounts of Christianity, Mr. Koritzinsky said, and has allowed him to grapple with Christian and Jewish traditions.

Mr. Koritzinsky said he struggled with the notion of God being a divine presence in his life and the notion of spontaneous prayer. He said that interacting with Christians, who speak of the divine and impulsively pray much more freely than Jews, had inspired him to reflect on those concepts in his life, and would help him convey them to others as a rabbi.

''The more questions you get asked, the more you end up going inside yourself and saying, What do I actually see about this?'' he said.

Talking about things like anti-Semitism, Jesus, the public role of deities and Israel has been difficult and painful at times, many at the colleges said, but has forced students and faculty members to consider another viewpoint.

Greg Mobley, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Andover Newton, said the collaboration allowed him to explore with a class why a tone of anti-Judaism emerged in early Christianity. Dr. Mobley said he found that he was very defensive when the subject was broached, and that he ended up talking more about ''the problems in Christianity than the beauty of it.''

Working with Jewish scholars and students has made him see it as a byproduct of ''two groups who had so much in common but who were desperately needing to find their own identity,'' Dr. Mobley said.

He now teaches a course on the story of Isaac in the Jewish and Christian traditions with Rabbi Or Rose. On a recent Thursday night, students sat in Hevrutah, a Jewish method of discussing text in small groups, and analyzed the practice of child sacrifice in ancient Hebrew tradition and others.

It was, in fact, a thread that ran through a number of Biblical passages, Dr. Mobley said.

''Given some of the dark origins of Jewish and Christian practices,'' he said, ''how does that make us feel about where our traditions came from? Do we prefer to keep the cellar door locked, or do we occasionally reopen it and examine?''

Michael Dinh-Cohen, a rabbinical student, said he felt fortunate to be asked to push those boundaries.

''I'm at a rabbinical school that is so open about exploration that we can look at questions about the development of Judaism in concert with its sister religion,'' he said. ''We let it challenge us and push our understanding beyond any narrow perspectives we may have had.''

Edie Crary Howe, 59, a former lawyer who is studying for a master's in divinity at Andover Newton, said she had learned to bridge differences through commonalities. ''We're both children of Abraham and children of Noah,'' Ms. Howe said. ''While we have our differences, we need not be so rancorous.''

Photo: Nick Carter, president of Andover Newton Theological School, left, and David Gordis, president of Hebrew College, on the adjacent campuses. (Photo by Jodi Hilton for The New York Times)